Yesterday, Outside editor John Bradley tweeted the message I’ve inserted below. It’s a nice thought, and there’s some good logic behind it—Google’s a smart, agile company, with business all over the world. It’s also been running YouTube at a loss for years, so the company isn’t gun-shy about seeing little-to-no direct monetary return on high-profile investments.

The problem is, logic has no place in cycling sponsorships. None. Winningest team in the ProTour? American squad sponsored by an American sportswear company that doesn’t even sell cycling apparel. It’s secondary sponsor? A telephone handset manufacturer that barely produces any phones under it’s own brand in the US. Does any of this make sense? Of course not.

I realize, looking back through my blog, that Cadel Evans, for a variety of reasons, ends up portrayed in a not-entirely-awesome light. And that’s a little unfair.

Many of Cadel’s more readily-caricatured traits—crankiness, occasionally short temper, especially with those organizing/supporting races—are shortcomings a ton of other racers (not to mention cycling bloggers) share.

Cadel finds himself in the crosshairs so much more than everyone else because he’s good, and he’s pretty open about what he shares with the Internet. I think he deserves more credit for having a sense of humor about the negative attention his outbursts occasionally receive:

What is this show “Holland Sport”, on which cyclists say things to the world? It does not seem like it sets a reasonable standard for investigative reporting.

(you should probably read the comments before proceeding)

First it was Thomas Dekker, talking about how EPO didn’t help and how he only took it once. Now it’s Tom Boonen, talking about how he can’t ever remember taking cocaine. Fact is, Tommeke may just be the first case of “second-hand coke” in recorded history. Wonder how long it’s going to take to get that on his Wikipedia page.

The image below links to a full HD (1920×1080 pixel) screen shot of the Tour of Flanders map on MapMyRide.com. The new line of iMacs and their massive displays not withstanding, that is friggin’ huge for a browser window.

Do you see Tour of Flanders?

Not only is the site painful to navigate (give up on their site search and just use Google), but the maps are almost entirely unusable. Floating ads, several layers of banner, pop-ups, motion GIFs—I’m not sure I could create a more infuriating user experience if I tried.

A sleeveless jersey made an appearance in @CadelOfficial’s twitpic on the ’09 Vuelta rest day:

There’s so much that caught me off-balance in this photo. Guess I should start off by saying that this is the most team support I’ve seen Evans get at Grand Tour since he started riding for Lotto.

Secondly, it’s not even that sunny out—I can see a preening Euro pro wanting to even out the tan lines but given the flat light, I’d have to say this choice is purely for style, not function.

I’ve been as thrilled as anyone by Philippe Gilbert’s late-season run. I think the Belgian has a great, positive style of racing that combines both tactics and straight-up guts. And like many others, I’m also thrilled to see Silence-Lotto score a couple of wins, after putting in a ton of effort and making a variety of races this season fun to watch.

I’ve never been much for Grand Tour prognostications immediately upon the release of a given event’s parcours. Aside from the fact that an infinite number of doping convictions, crashes, team developments, and vacillations in form could occur during the next 10 months, the fact is that things tend not to unfold as predicted.

Is the memory of this year’s Tour so faded that people have forgotten how the first action-packed week—tabbed by many beforhand to be something of a bore—led into a week and a half of largely formulaic and negative racing, culminating with a ride to the top of Ventoux that almost appeared to be a mosey to behind two day-long breakaways.

I’ve got a lot of respect for Michael Barry. He’s one of the smartest, most introspective, eloquent riders in the peloton. He also happens to disagree with me completely on the issue of race radios in the modern peloton.

Barry recently wrote an extensive, heartfelt argument against race radios in his Velonews diary. While I enjoyed reading it, and understand his feelings on the subject, the essay made some fairly glaring errors and misstatements, so I’ve given it the Fire Joe Morgan treatment. No disrespect is intended; indeed, I’m much more swayed by the authors’ thoughts on radios and TTs.

Cyclingnews—at the time of his ascendency the only regularly updated online cycling resource—has a nice collection of photos cataloguing Frank Vandenbroucke’s career.

Lacking a photo archive to pull from, I Wordled together this grayscale text cloud from a variety of obits—in depth, brisk, mainstream, and cycling-specific—in an effort to capture a rider whose story was at turns glorious, miserable, mundane, and bizarre.

(click through for full-size, sources)

Can radios be ruining cycling if the *real* Sprinters’ Classic goes to a rouleur for the second straight year? QuickStep shoulders the chasing load, while in the break, a Skil-Shimano rider sees too much soft-pedaling and makes the leap for freedom. But it’s all together with 8k to go as a very unlikely group threatens to force the selection.

[right-click for iTunes compatible download]

Also available on YouTube.